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Thursday, July 7, 2016

My trip to Japan - Osaka (Day 12-15)

1st day Osaka:
We arrived quite early in Osaka. Since our luggages were at Shin-Osaka station, we drove back there, just to decide that it wouldn't make sense to take our luggage, go to the hotel, and then go back again, so we tried to go outside to find some shopping mall. However there is nothing around Shin-Osaka, so we decided to go to Osaka station and visit two shops I wanted to see. I didn't print out a detailed map of Osaka like I did for the other cities, so it was a little struggle to find everything. Luckily there are small maps everywhere, even in english, but you still need some time to find the right direction.

First we went to the Jesus Diamante store, however we arrived so early that it was still closed. But you could see nearly everything through the windows, and I could never afford something from there anyway. I found it interesting that the store also sold other luxury brands, I guess otherwise they couldn't finance themselves?

Then we went to the HEP 5 mall, where you can find Axes Femme and
many other shops. The mall also has a ferris wheel. We got hungry, so
we visited the restaurants of the mall to eat some typical japanese food
we hadn't tried before, and what is more typical than Omurice
:D. There was a shop which had tons of different variations of this
dish, and I took the traditional ketchup rice filling with an
untraditional burger bun on top xD.

After this it was already time for the hotel check-in, so we picked up our luggage and went to the hotel. Unfortunately all the good hotels were fully booked, so I had to take an okay one, and it was indeed just okay. The important stuff like bed and toilet were clean but I wouldn't spend there any extra minute xD. In the afternoon we went to the big Abeno mall in Tennoji, since our hotel was close to it. This mall is huge and has for example a second Shibuya 109 and a big supermarket. The supermarket had a huge selection of bentos, I swear around 100 different versions, however we bought something for dinner there (acutally the first time I bought sushi in Japan xD) and it really didn't tasted good.

We also ate a Crêpe at the Abeno mall

2nd day Osaka:
Today we visited Osaka castle. The sun was burning really intense and I regretted to not take my umbrella with me. Osaka castle is nice but also quite small. The inside is quite boring because there is just a museum inside, no traditional rooms. But you get a nice view over Osaka from the top, so I still recommend it.

After this, we visited the famous Dotonbori shopping street. I read in another blog that the @Cosme shop whould be better than the ones in Tokyo, and indeed I felt like it had a better selection, I bought several items there which didn't came to my attention in Tokyo.

After this I was a little hungry, but I wanted to eat some dessert. So we went through the long Dotonbori and Shinsaibashidori but only found normal restaurants, and when we were almost giving up, we found the cheese cake café "Pablo" which also seemed to be very popular! (Later we found out, we just should have walked into the other direction of the streets xD). I choose a Mango cake and my mother some Takoyaki-inspired cake, turned out it had real cheese in it! But the mix of the sweet cake with the salty cheese was actually really delicious.

After this I tried to find the Prisila store and we searched for it at least half an hour, only to realize it was closed down for good(?), since the building where it should be wasn't accessible.

Then we tried to find Angelic Pretty, Closet Child and Maiden Clothing, and again since my Osaka maps were super undetailed, we needed a lot of time to find them and found them more by accident xD. I have to say the Closet Child and Maiden Clothing had a better selection than the ones in Tokyo, because all the popular items don't get sold-out so quickly. I didn't wanted to buy something big, but I found the Metamorphose Bubble Bath skirt I always wanted for sooo cheap! There was also an AP dress I liked, but I didn't wanted to spend so much money anymore, so I didn't bought it (but now I regret it a little because the AP Tea Party in Paris got announced and I could have worn it there xD).

In the evening, we wanted to try the Alucard Vampire restaurant, because we heard that the food is delicious there. However the restaurant was a complete FAIL for us! The waiter only could speak japanese, and the menu was also only in japanese with no pictures. Only the categories like "noodles" and "meat" were in english. With my basic Katakana skills we managed to order a spaghetti dish and something with meat, which turned out to be just a small piece of meat with sauce, which was super expensive. And did I mention it wasn't decorated at all??? Well I guess if you would take the several-course dinner for 3000-5000 yen you would get something, otherwise don't go there if you don't speak japanese xD.

3rd day Osaka:
Since we didn't knew what to do, I decided to visit the Tennoji temple, just because it was close to our hotel. The temple is not really impressive but well it was something xD. After this we went to the Keitakuen Garden which turned out to be really beautiful! However suddenly we got attacked by mosquitos and my mom got more than 30 mosquito bites, while I got like 1? xD But there was a small wood building which seemed to be mosquito-free, so we went inside and it was really great because it was directly build at the small lake, and all the turtles and fishes were swimming under the window in hope to get some food. The turtles were really staring at us!

The hungry turtoises D:

After the garden we were in need for some refreshment and went back to the Tennoji station, were we found a delicous looking shaved ice with real strawberry topping.

Then we saw an advertisement for the "Museum of Housing and Living" and decided to go there. I couldn't really believe that it was on the 8th floor since I saw pictures of actual houses on the flyer, but it was indeed inside a building! You could also try on a Kimono for only 300 Yen, and take as many pictures as you want inside the museum, but the next available time slot was in 2 hours, and the museum was really not big enough to wait so long, so we didn't do it (but if I would ever go there again, I would definitely try it, you just have to make your own hair and make-up, but you can take pictures in the traditional buildings!).

We got hungry and decided to return to Dotonbori to eat some Okonomiyaki. We just took the first restaurant we found and it was a good decision, because when the Okonomiyaki got served, the waiter drawed cute pictures on it with the sauce! The restaurant really didn't looked like this at all xD.

4th day Osaka
This was our last day in Japan, and we had to leave very early because the flight was early in the morning. Our Japan Rail Pass wasn't valid anymore, so we had to buy extra tickets for the train. However I didn't knew that you have to pay an extra fee if you take the express train, so when the conductor came, we were missing 200 Yen to buy the extra fee, because we spend all our last Yens in Osaka. But a very nice japanese man saw our situation and gave us the money so we wouldn't be in trouble. I was so grateful ;_;